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austriamicrosystems released the AS5048, a 14-bit magnetic encoder IC offering new features which make it easier than ever to achieve accurate, reliable angle measurements in microcontroller-based applications.

The AS5048, which provides a PWM output and either an SPI or I2C interface, supplies absolute angle measurements to a host microcontroller. The application’s mechanical design does not need to allow for precise initial alignment of the sensor IC and the two-pole magnet it is paired with: instead, the zero position is programmed into the AS5048 magnetic encoder one time only on assembly, via a simple SPI or I2C command, with no requirement for a special programming device.

The AS5048 is also highly tolerant of misalignment between the sensor IC and its paired magnet and of variations in the air gap, as well as of variations in temperature from -40°C to +150°C.

The new AS5048 magnetic rotary encoder offers more precise measurement than previous members of austriamicrosystems’ family of magnetic rotary encoders. Its 14-bit measurement engine provides for resolution down to 0.0219°. With linearization and averaging implemented in the host microcontroller, it can deliver angle measurements accurate to 0.05°.

The new AS5048 also takes advantage of proprietary manufacturing processes developed at austriamicrosystems’ wafer fab in Graz, Austria, which enable the production of extremely sensitive analog circuits. The IC’s high sensitivity means that it can be paired with low-cost magnet types such as ferrites, operating reliably in magnetic fields as weak as 30 mT.

Like austriamicrosystems’ existing magnetic encoders, this new device reliably rejects interference from stray magnetic fields, thanks to the unique design of the IC’s integrated Hall sensors and signal processing circuitry. This makes the AS5048 well suited for use in electrically and magnetically noisy industrial and medical environments.

Alfred Binder, Marketing Manager at austriamicrosystems, said, “austriamicrosystems is a long-standing supplier of magnetic encoders to thousands of customers, and feedback from these customers on our existing devices has helped us to make the new AS5048 a very attractive product. It is accurate and robust like all of austriamicrosystems’ magnetic encoders, easy to assemble in an end product, and now even easier to implement in microcontroller-based designs.”

An internal voltage regulator enables the AS5048 to operate from either a 3.3V or 5V supply. It is available in a 14-pin TSSOP package. Multiple devices can be daisy-chained to produce a serial data read-out.